


Memories of a Darker Time

by JeromeClarke107



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Non-Consensual Oral Sex, Past Rape/Non-con, Rape Recovery, Troy Barnes loves Abed Nadir, tw rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:20:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25201573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeromeClarke107/pseuds/JeromeClarke107
Summary: Abed opens up to Troy about a horrifying experience he had in high school, and Troy just wants to help him stop hurting.
Relationships: Abed Nadir/Original Male Characters, Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir
Comments: 1
Kudos: 141





	Memories of a Darker Time

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed all warnings listed in the tags.
> 
> There are quite a few references to Abed being assaulted by his high school football team and forced into performing oral sex on them. The majority of the fic focuses on Troy coping with understanding what his friend went through and offering him comfort in the best way he knows how.
> 
> Please be safe if you think you may be triggered by this!
> 
> Written for a prompt on the first Angst/Fluff Prompt List by HellsDemonicTrinity on Tumblr  
> Prompt: I'm never letting you go

Abed tells him stories sometimes about what it was like for him in high school.

He tells him about being thrown against lockers and about being shoved inside of them. He tells him about how Bruce Jackson’s hands had clenched around his throat, how his sight had gone blurry and he’d thought he was dying, how he thought about the last thing he’d said to his mom because he’d been sure that he would never see her again.

He tells him about being pushed down onto his knees on the floor of the showers, about having his hands held tight behind his back while the football team took turns shoving themselves down his throat. He tells him about gagging on them as they used his mouth ruthlessly, how they’d held it closed and made him swallow after they came.

And then he tells him that he’s never told anyone before.

Troy’s arms wrap around him tightly because there’s nothing he can do to fix it, because he finally understands why Abed doesn’t want to wear his letterman jacket.

Abed’s hands rub up and down Troy’s back while he cries on their living room couch, and Troy doesn’t know how he’s crying and Abed isn’t. Maybe, after everything, he doesn’t have it in him to cry about it anymore. Troy’s always been the more emotional of the two of them, Abed the more logical.

He wraps a hand around the back of Abed’s head and clings to him, his other hand travels down so he can wrap his arm around Abed’s hip and lift him into his lap. He needs to be touching his skin, to hold him tight and know that he’s safe in Troy’s arms, untouchable.

He tries to apologize, but can’t get the words out between the sobs that won’t stop.

“I’d kill them all,” he knows he doesn’t sound menacing, but he feels the need to protect, to promise that as long as Troy’s around (which will be always) nothing so horrible will ever happen to his friend again.

He feels Abed smile against the skin of his shoulder, and he tugs him impossibly closer.

“You cry if Annie kills a spider.”

“I have more sympathy for spiders. These guys deserve to be squashed in a paper towel.”

“It was a really long time ago.”

Troy presses a gentle kiss to his best friend’s cheek, “I could never forgive them for what they did to you.”

“I don’t even remember their faces,” Abed whispers.

Troy kisses down his neck and stretches his t-shirt so he can kiss down his shoulder, too. It always astounds him to think that someone could look at Abed and see anything less than perfection, as a thing they could use rather than a person to worship.

He adjusts them so he can look into Abed’s eyes. He senses a sadness there that refuses to present itself, and it feels like the same sadness he’d felt when he’d intentionally hurt himself on the keg stand. It’s the kind of pain that you don’t want to acknowledge because it means that there’s something wrong with you, that something happened to you and it turned you into the kind of victim you’re used to feeling sorry for.

But there could never be anything wrong with Abed. Ever.

He cradles Abed’s face and kisses his lips, presses his tongue tenderly against his friend’s. His lips taste like blueberries.

“You got a new chapstick.”

“They didn’t have cherry. I tried three stores before I settled.”

“This one’s nice, but I miss the cherry. I’ve gotten used to it tasting like you.”

Abed smiles sweetly, and Troy’s hands start sliding up the back of his shirt, his skin soft against Troy’s fingertips. He licks his lips and tastes the blueberry that should be cherry, and it’s a change but it’s still undeniably Abed.

He hopes that there’s never been a time when Abed’s looked at him (even in his early days at Greendale when he clung to his letterman jacket) and saw the men who violated him, who hurt him for no other reason than because it made them feel strong that they could.

He pulls Abed into a warm, tight embrace. He takes in his long legs and his slim waist and his soft skin and knows without a shadow of a doubt that he wants to spend forever holding this person.

“I’m never letting you go, Abed.”

He feels Abed let out a shaky breath against the skin of his neck.

“Please don’t.”


End file.
